Dell shows off its elegant side with Adamo

Dell has built a huge business around solid, affordable machines which inspire loyalty but little lust.

But the company is trying to reposition itself as a stylish maker of computers, the kind you drool over. But to do that, you need a statement, something more than the colors and textures they’ve started offering on some laptops.

Enter Adamo. The ultra portable laptop is Dell’s fashion statement, a beautiful halo product that establishes the company’s claim to real design credentials. Think of it like a fine Swiss time piece or a Montblanc Pen, Dell’s executives told me. The thin notebook, which sells for $2,000 and $2,700, is now available for orders today.

Adamo, which means to fall in love, will get compared to Apple’s MacBook Air and the Voodoo Envy 133 from HP. That’s a good conversation to be in, though Dell’s people will tell you they come out on top of that debate.

The laptop is made from a machined aluminum chassis and comes in at .65 inches thick, thinner than the MacBook Air at its widest. It sports a .55 millimeter tempered glass panel and “scalloped” keys on the keyboard. It tips the scales at 4 pounds which is heftier than the MacBook Air and Envy, but still in keeping with its elegant image.

You’ll be able to get Adamo in silver or onyx. The silver version really emphasizes one of the design cues of the machine: the square. It has square designs etched along the top and the ventilation holes along the back are also punched squares, which is harder to do but is a nice detail to throw in.

Even the packaging and accessories are designed to be eye-catching. The computer comes shipped in a clear plastic case, like something you’d see a nice watch come in. And the laptop can can be accessorized with bags for him and her designed by Tumi.

The computer won’t blow you away with processing power. The base model comes with a 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of memory, a 128 GB solid state drive. The more expensive model will provide a faster processor, more memory and a larger solid state drive. Battery time is supposed to give you about 5 hours of computing time.

Dell seems serious about upping the designs on its computers. Not everything will look as slick as Adamo but it shows that the company is definitely prepared to make design a bigger part of its DNA.